ISLAMABAD, April 24: The Federal Committee on Agriculture (FCA) has set up a ‘national task force’ to curb hoarding of food items, particularly wheat, and their smuggling to neighbouring countries.

The FCA has also backed a Punjab government’s move to maintain a ban on inter-provincial movement of wheat till the government achieves the wheat procurement target of 5 million tons.

The ban does not affect wheat supplies to provinces under the quota system.

Addressing a press conference after a meeting of the FCA, Federal Minister for Food, Agriculture and Livestock, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, ruled out any further increase in the wheat procurement price which had been raised to Rs625 per 40kg from Rs510 some time ago.

He said the task force, to be headed by the food and agriculture secretary, would monitor day-to-day procurement and availability of wheat in the country. He said after two seeks the FCA would brief top leadership of the PPP, PML-N and other allied parties on the situation.

The task force comprises chief secretaries of all the provinces, additional secretary interior and an official of the Fata secretariat.

The committee estimated that wheat production would be 21.8 million tons, about 2.2 million tons less than the previous estimate of 24 million tons and 1.5 million tons less than last year’s harvest.

Chaudhry Nisar said that food prices were going up globally, but the situation in Pakistan had deteriorated owing to failure of the previous government to announce the wheat support price on time and bring down rising prices of various inputs, including fertiliser.

He admitted that this year’s estimated wheat production fell short of the country’s requirement by one million tons and said the cabinet had decided to import 1.5 million tons wheat to meet the shortfall. He said the quantity of import might be increased if the situation so required.

He said the government had already exhausted its strategic wheat reserves and now the whole pressure was on the wheat procurement process.

KHARIF TARGETS: The FCA set cotton production target at 14.11 million bales for the new crop compared to 11.6 million bales last year.

The committee forecast 62.3 million tons sugarcane production this year, against 54.7 million tons achieved last year.

The food minister said that Pakistan could face 4 to 5 per cent water shortage during the Kharif season. He, however, expressed the hope that the situation would improve as the water flow into dams could increase due to the melting of snows.

Rice production this year has been estimated at 5.72 million tons, against the last year’s output of 5.5 million tons.

The minister said the government had no plans to ban the export of rice because it was one of the main items to earn foreign exchange. He said there was 2.3 million tons of surplus rice, adding that the government was monitoring the situation and would hold meeting with exporters to ensure reasonable price in the local market.

Chief Ministers for Sindh and NWFP Sayed Qaim Ali Shah and Amir Haider Khan Hoti, respectively, Adviser to Prime Minister on Interior Rahman A. Malik, provincial chief secretaries, provincial food ministers and senior officials attended the meeting. The chief ministers of Punjab and Balochistan could not attend the meeting.